Concern over Buhari administration’s penchant for disobeying court orders

In 2016, the Federal Government, in an announcement made by the then Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, disclosed that it had recovered cash sums of N78,325,354,631.82, $185,119,584.61, £3,508,355.46 and €11, 250, among others, from looters.
Mohammed said the funds were recovered within the first year of President Muhammadu’s first term in office – between May 29, 2015, and May 25, 2016.

The ex-information minister, however, did not give the names of the looters from whom the funds were recovered.
Curious about the identities of the looters, an anti-corruption advocacy group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, requested the names of the looters according to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.
After the Federal Government spurned the request for the list of the looters, SERAP headed for the Federal High Court in Lagos, praying for an order compelling the government to honour the request.

The group argued that publishing the looters’ names would provide an insight into the debate on the ongoing anti-corruption fight and how looters had been evading punishment.
It urged the court to determine whether by virtue of Section 4(a) of the Freedom of Information Act 2011, the Federal Government was not under an obligation to publish the looters’ names as it had requested.
Giving judgement on July 5, 2017, Justice Hadizat Shagari agreed with SERAP and ordered the Federal Government to make the names of the looters public.

But two years on since Justice Shagari gave the judgement, the Federal Government has yet to publish the list.

Earlier, SERAP had obtained a court judgement ordering the Buhari administration to compel the regimes of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, and former President Goodluck Jonathan to account for how much of the money looted by the late military dictator, Gen Sani Abacha, was recovered under each of the regimes and how the recovered funds were spent.

The Federal High Court, in a judgment by Justice Mohammed Idris (now a Justice of the Court of Appeal), made the order in 2016.
Three years after, that judgment has also yet to be obeyed.
Piqued by the Federal Government’s disregard for the court judgements, SERAP in May 2018 sent a petition to the United Nations, wherein it urged the international body to prevail on President Buhari to put a stop to “wilful disobedience of court judgements by his government.”

The organisation, in its petition dated May 11, 2018, lamented the “Federal Government’s habit of picking and choosing court judgements to obey.”
It expressed concern that if not checked, a situation where the Federal Government wilfully disobeyed court judgements would ultimately “put the rule of law in Nigeria under siege.”
In the petition addressed to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Mr Diego García-Sayán, SERAP said apart from the two cases above, the Federal Government was also in disobedience to the court judgements ordering that the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria, Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky; his wife, Zeenat; and a former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, who were being detained, should be released.

El-Zakzaky and his wife had been arrested and kept in the custody of the Department of State Services, following a violent clash between members of the IMN sect and soldiers in the convoy of the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, in Zaria, Kaduna State on December 14, 2015.
But on December 3, 2016, the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the release of the cleric and his wife.
Justice Gabriel Kolawole (now a Justice of the Court of Appeal) made the order while giving judgements in two separate fundamental rights enforcement suits filed on behalf of El-Zakzaky and his wife by human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana (SAN).

Falana had in the suit contended that the detention of the couple for nearly a year without trial amounted to a violation of their fundamental rights under Section 35(1) of the 1999 Constitution and provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights.
In his judgement, Justice Kolawole agreed with Falana and ordered the release of El-Zakzaky and his wife within 45 days of the judgement.
Besides, the judge awarded N25m each in favour of the husband and wife against the Federal Government for the violation of their rights.

Till date, however, neither has El-Zakzaky and his wife been released nor the N50m awarded in their favour paid by the Federal Government.
In the string of court judgements being disobeyed by the Federal Government in the last four years were also those ordering that Dasuki should be released on bail pending the conclusion of the criminal cases filed against him.
The ex-NSA is facing multiple charges bordering on illegal firearms possession and diversion of the $2.1bn earmarked under former President Goodluck Jonathan for the purchase of arms for the Nigerian Armed Forces to fight the Boko Haram insurgents.

Following his arraignment, Dasuki was variously granted bail by both the courts where he is being tried for illegal firearms possession and fraud.
Before meeting the bail conditions, he was remanded in Kuje Prison. He regained his freedom on December 29, 2015, after perfecting the bail conditions.
The freedom was, however, short-lived as upon stepping out of the prison, he was re-arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services and taken into the custody of the secret police.

He has remained there since then, notwithstanding subsequent court orders, including that of the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States in Abuja, which awarded N15m damages in his favour against the Federal Government.
Four years after, Dasuki’s trials have made little or no progress as he insisted that until the government allowed him to enjoy the bail granted him by the courts, he would not appear in court for his trial.

Another judgement, which the Federal Government may have disobeyed was the one made by the Federal High Court in Abuja directing the government to set the overall limits for the “amounts of consolidated debts” of the nation’s federal, state and local governments.
Justice Kolawole gave the judgement on February 20, 2018, in a suit filed by the Centre for Social Justice.
In the suit filed on May 8, 2013, during the administration of former President Jonathan, the centre said it was concerned about the fast-growing local and foreign debt profiles of the federal and state governments in Nigeria.

In his judgement, Justice Kolawole said it was mandatory for the government to set the debt limits as provided by Section 42(1) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007.
He specifically ordered the Federal Government to set the debt limits, which should be approved by both the Senate and the House of Representatives within 90 days of the judgement.
In an interview with our correspondent on Thursday, the President of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Mr Malachy Ugwummadu, said the CDHR was concerned about government’s penchant for shunning court orders, saying the trend had the potential to undermine the state.

He said, “It is not just a concern that government’s penchant for disobeying court orders gives the CDHR, it is that the trend has the capacity of undermining the government.
“Section 287 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 is to the effect that every government, whether federal or state, every institution of the government, every agency of the government and individuals are obligated to obey and enforce the judgements of courts of records.

“These judgements, that we are complaining have not been complied with, are judgements of competent courts of jurisdiction and courts of records. Unfortunately for Mr President, he was the Chairman of ECOWAS when the judicial arm of the same organisation, which is the ECOWAS Court sitting in Abuja, handed down the rulings in respect of El-Zakzaky. But they refused to obey. That is a very bad example to not just the country that he leads but the sub-regional group and the member states.

“It goes to show the quality of the legal advice that the President is getting from the judicial experts around him.”
Also, the President, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Prof Yemi Akinseye-George (SAN), said the FG could not afford to continue to disobey court orders as doing so might precipitate a state of anarchy.
Akinseye-George said any court judgement, no matter how unreasonable it might seem, must be obeyed, adding that if the government had any reason at all not to obey a court judgement, it must go to that court and state such reasons rather than ignore such judgement.

The professor said Nigeria’s democracy, which is now 20 years old, could only be sustained by upholding the supremacy of the rule of law.
He expressed the hope that President Buhari’s government would turn a new leaf in its second term.
But a Lagos-based lawyer, Mr Jiti Ogunye, said given the track record of President Buhari’s administration in the last four years, it would be a waste of time for anyone to hope for a change of attitude in government’s disposition to court orders.

Ogunye said it was up to the Nigerian people to say no more and compel the government to begin to respect the decisions of the court.
He said, “Given the track record of the administration on the disobedience of court orders, what hope should anybody have that there is going to be a better outcome? Anybody that has such hope is not realistic. Deliberately and not, this administration has told Nigerians what it would do regarding such cases.

“Just recently, the Court of Appeal granted another order for the release of Dasuki on bail; even though there is no sitting attorney general, that shouldn’t take an eternity to comply with.”
Similarly, Mr Norrson Quakers (SAN) said he could not hope for a change in government’s attitude to court orders as President Buhari was a military ruler who was finding it difficult to embrace democratic ideals.
Quakers said the only hope for a change was “if the judiciary becomes independent in the real sense of independence.”

He said, “You also have a group of persons, who, rather than speak the truth to the authorities, are playing partisan politics because of self-interest. So, it is difficult to say that in the next four years we are going to see a change in the government’s attitude to court orders.”
Upon Buhari’s inauguration for the second term on May 29, 2019, SERAP had in a statement by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oludare, described disobedience of a court order as a blight on the President’s first term in office.

It said, “We urge you to use the opportunity of your second term to begin to implement your oft-expressed commitment to the rule of law by immediately obeying decisions of Nigerian courts,” SERAP told the President.

(Credit: PUNCH)